Self-Publishing? These Editing Tips Will Ensure You Release a Quality Book

We all hear too much how the self-publishing market is riddled with half-baked, poorly-edited books, and you don’t want to fall into that pile. But when you read advice from self-publishing gurus or million-dollar indie authors, you’re terrified at the budgets and must-dos they throw at you.

When it comes to producing a great book, self-publishers need only follow these two rules:

1. Don’t publish a crappy book

You want to produce a quality book your audience will love. You want to rally people around your message. If your book achieves those objectives, the other rules probably don’t matter, right? (Cue heckling from editors and grammar geeks!)

In most cases, atrocious punctuation and sentence structure will, in fact, distract readers from your message so badly your book will be ineffective. Standards are built in. Don’t write like you never went to high school.

However, in many cases, your readers will not notice whether you consistently place spaces around your dashes or not. Or whether your period is placed inside the parentheses or out. And they might even look past a couple of typos.

Barter with a book coach to guide the development of your manuscript in exchange for hours of your life coaching/business consulting/website design/[insert your killer service here].

Content Editing

At this level, you’re ensuring your draft is readable and aligns with the goals you set for the book. To get it done for free …

Offer a free advance copy of your book to loyal readers in exchange for feedback. Give them a manuscript review form (like this one from Stacy Ennis) as a guide to ensure you get direct, usable feedback.

Offer yourself as a mentor for a budding writer or entrepreneur in exchange for his feedback on your book.

Copyediting

This is the editing most people think of as “editing”: adjusting mechanics, syntax, and semantics to polish your manuscript. To get skilled eyes on this thing …

Reach into your network and hire newbie editors to copyedit at a low rate in exchange for the experience, a testimonial and a referral source.

Enlist your English-teacher aunt (really, she does know her stuff) and give her a style guide for your manuscript. Give her free babysitting for a year, or copyedit HER next book in exchange.

Joy, I’m so happy to turn you on to bartering! It’s changed the way I do business. Sometimes you’ll connect with someone whose service is so much more valuable than money to you that you’ll PREFER to trade services over direct hiring. It’s a win-win when you’re on a tight budget, too 🙂

Happy to hear that, Kathy 🙂 There are a ton of resources available to help writers manage their editing process; it’s just tough to know where to get started! Feel free to reach out any time; I’m happy to share additional resources.

Elke, I’m sorry to hear that! We kind of assume a publisher will have our backs and put out the best books possible, but I guess they can skimp and slack as much as anyone else… Connecting with your own editors and critique partners, as well as understanding these steps in the editing process, is a great way to take control of the quality of your book, whether you self-publish or work with a publisher.

The world is indeed filled with crap books that people write in a few hours just trying to make a quick buck. Becoming a professional writer has been a dream of mine since I read Eragon at ten years old and heard it was written when Paolini was fifteen. That was ten years ago, but my dream never has faded. Thanks for the article, it’s probably got some good uses out of it!

Halo there, thanks for the information Dana. I’m am busy to publish my first book, but there’s one problem that I have: It is Just the money. I have one Question.
How long does it takes before you get paid?